


After the Rose

by Rin_the_Shadow



Category: Winx Club
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Parent Issues, Self-Hatred, Sort Of, bonding over missing parents, but maybe they can get better, just sort-of friends hanging out, mixes elements of 4kids and cinelume dubs, supplementary material-inspired, these kids suck at talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24088309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rin_the_Shadow/pseuds/Rin_the_Shadow
Summary: About a week after the Day of the Rose and another fight with the guys, Riven heads off to downtown Magix to blow off some steam. A minor accident with the fairy of music ends up revealing a bit of common ground between them.
Relationships: Musa & Riven (Winx Club)
Kudos: 29





	After the Rose

He wasn’t sure why he’d come here to begin with. It wasn’t like he celebrated Day of the Rose anyway. Not when he’d never really had any reason to. The whole thing just seemed like the universe finding more ways to rub it in his face. Couples everywhere. Noises everywhere. Everyone making a big deal out of this thing that really, he just didn’t see the point of.

And, sure, he guessed he could enter the race with his…friends. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if he could call them that. They’d been stuck in the same group since pretty much forever, and they kept inviting him to things, but it wasn’t like he wanted to go as much as he just kept showing up for some reason. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to do that well in the race anyway, no matter how sure he said he was of victory.

Sure enough, his helmet had shorted out in the last lap of the race. He wasn’t all that surprised, really. Served him right for changing things up right before a race. State of the art technology? Using telepathic interfacing? With _his_ mental basket case? Yeah, that was just _asking_ for trouble. Honestly. He didn’t know why he’d taken it. Not that it had stopped him from snapping at everyone over it.

He hadn’t seen that Earth chick since then. He’d heard from Brandon that she’d attacked one of the contestants, but when the guys had tried to describe them, he hadn’t been able to place them in his memory. Some groupie who’d decided at the last minute that they wanted to race? That didn’t make sense. The Race for the Rose didn’t allow late-starters.

Well, whatever. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway.

About a week later, he found himself back in the square. Again, he wasn’t really sure _why_. He’d argued with Brandon and Sky over something stupid, not that that was anything new. He couldn’t even remember _what_ at the moment. But it had been like that pretty much since then.

Heck, maybe he just needed to see it when it _wasn’t_ all decked out for the Day of the Rose. Though he wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do to kill some time before going back to Red Fountain. It wasn’t like there was anything he really needed or _wanted_ to do.

Riven huffed. Didn’t some people just come here and walk around? Sure, why not try that.

A loop or two around the same block made him realize pretty quickly that he didn’t know his way around here anywhere near as well as he thought he did. Right. When was the last time he’d been here on his own? When he’d first enrolled at Red Fountain? Before that? He guessed he’d been spending too much time on sword training and cutting his time on his hoverbike. But it wasn’t like he didn’t have a good reason for that. Some people just weren’t naturally good at everything. ~~And some people just weren’t naturally good at anything.~~ He was fine with that.

Of course, right _now_ he would have liked to have a better sense of direction. Or, at least that whatever existed of his sense of direction applied to city streets instead of just forests and tracking. _Or_ that he’d taken his bike instead of getting on the bus. His bike would still be there no matter when he got back to it. When did the bus stop running again?

The last thing he wanted right now was to have to call one of the guys to come pick him up just because he couldn’t find the bus stop. Maybe trying to kill some time hadn’t been the best idea either.

Hm. If he started now, he might be able to find the bus before it stopped running.

Well….the best way to start might be to retrace where he’d been. Riven turned and started back up the street. It wasn’t great, since he didn’t recognize most of the stores he’d passed, but it had to be better than just standing there looking foolish.

Some of the signs were just starting to look familiar when he noticed pigtails heading towards him. Er…maybe not _towards_ him, but heading his general direction. Which was…not good. Riven wasn’t sure just _what_ his feelings were for this girl, a fairy from Alfea with a penchant for music, but he was pretty sure that throwing more emotional crap into the mix was not what he needed to be doing right then.

Luckily, Musa was too wrapped up in whatever was coming through the headphones over her ears to notice him, tapping out a beat with her fingers as she half-walked, half-shuffled down the street. It wouldn’t be too hard to make a break for it before she saw.

The only problem with that was that he couldn’t really afford to get himself more lost. Maybe there _was_ another hour or four before the last stop, but with Riven’s luck, he wasn’t about to bet on needing anything less than every second.

But maybe, just maybe, with how absorbed she was in her music, he could just walk right past her without her even noticing. Sure, he didn’t know her very well, but a sixth sense seemed like one of those things you mentioned on your first meeting.

Okay. This was fine. He could do this.

Stepping as far to the right as possible without stepping into the street, Riven stuffed his hands in his pockets, put his head down just in case, and walked.

 _Don’t look at her, don’t think about how one wrong move…_ He could do this.

They were just about to pass each other—being the fairy of music didn’t give her like, super-heartbeat-slash-footstep-sensing abilities, did it?—and he reminded himself to just keep walking. Don’t make a big deal out of it, and it would be like nothing happened.

And then she suddenly took a hard left and smacked right into him.

Whelp. He didn’t know what he’d expected.

Musa immediately stopped, whirling around even before she’d gotten her headphones off. “Oh, shit! Sorry! I thought it was just me here so I wasn’t watching…”

Time seemed to stand still as she realized just who she’d smacked into, and he watched as her startlement turned to horror in front of him.

“Oh my God, Riven! I swear I didn’t know it was you—” she’d started rambling even more.

Great. So he probably looked annoyed. Like that was anything new. There was something he was supposed to say back to this, right? Otherwise, he’d just be digging himself deeper with the Alfea girls as well as the guys back at Red Fountain.

“Uh, hey…” Probably not that. “It’s…uh, it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t paying attention either.” He _really_ hoped being fairy of music didn’t mean she came with a built-in lie detector. “It’s…Musa, right?”

She didn’t exactly brighten up, but at least she looked a lot less like a frightened tree squirrel. “Yeah!” She paused, fiddling with the music player at her hip. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here right now. Streets tend to be pretty quiet the week after…You know?”

Did she know about what happened at the Race for the Rose? Probably. One of the Alfrea girls would’ve told her, wouldn’t they? She didn’t need to tiptoe around it like that.

“Speaking of the Festival of the Rose,” he said, pleased with himself for sounding relatively normal. “I didn’t see you there. Did you go home to celebrate?”

Hurt flashed in her eyes. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost have said she had winced at that. “Uh…ah, no, I don’t…I guess you could say I have my own way…” She growled, pressing her hands against the sides of her head until she figured it out. “It’s just been a few years since I really celebrated it, you know? I mean, more than a few, but...yeah.”

Oh. Oh, shit. This was one of those emotional things, wasn’t it? If Riven hadn’t known just how over his head he was before, he definitely knew it now. “I…I don’t really celebrate it either,” he said.

As if that wasn’t saying _way_ too much to someone he barely knew.

“Oh. Really? But I thought you were in the race—”

“That was…more for the guys than me.” Musa didn’t mean anything by it, right? But she was still getting way too close to stuff he didn’t want to talk about. “I mean…a race is a race, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Did she look as relieved as he was? “So what brings you here?”

Right. That was like…a normal thing people asked when they ran into each other. “I just headed down here to blow off steam.” It wasn’t like he had to tell her he’d had another stupid fight with the guys.

“Yeah. I do that too, sometimes,” she paused. “I mean, today I just figured the streets would be empty so I could work on my beats, but…”

She swallowed. “Anyway, wanna blow off steam together for a bit?”

“What?” An alarm shot off in his head.

“Not like a date or anything,” she clarified. “Just to like, hang out, you know?”

So not like a girlfriend. More like a friend who just happened to be a girl. Of course, he knew even less of how that was supposed to work. But Musa was…Musa. Not that he knew that much of her. But hey. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Except…

“I mean, I’ll need to catch the bus before the day ends…”

“Oh, no biggie! It’s the same for me,” she grinned. “Besides, we don’t have to take more than like, an hour or two.”

Honestly, he didn’t really want to go back just yet. And if she needed the bus as well, then he wouldn’t have to admit he didn’t know where the stop was.

“Sure, why not,” he answered, unable to keep the nerves completely out of his voice.

They’d ended up walking up and down that block. As it turned out, Musa knew a few side streets with all kinds of obscure music stores. She was determined not to go in and he half-heartedly tried to act as the bad influence that would convince her to walk out with two or three extra tracks she didn’t need. She’d seen through him right away, which wasn’t helped by the fact that he really didn’t know what he was doing with that, and it was pretty obvious.

“Nah, I’m trying to pace myself with this. I don’t wanna get to the end of the week and start mixing them up again, you know?”

Had she done that before? Just how many tracks had she ended up with? It must have been obvious he was wondering that, because she grinned wryly and said, “I lost count. Ended up with so many I just gave up and quit trying to count 'em.”

One way or another, he’d missed her sense of humor before.

On the way back, she’d even pointed out a few auto-parts shops and upgrade-centers. Some of them, he’d actually never heard of before, but when she pointed out Zephyr’s Riders, he started to realize where they were. If he could memorize where this was in relation to the bus stop, he could start working out where everything else was related to that.

When they reached the bus stop, she’d explained how the schedule was posted next to the mark, and how, if you accessed the Realm Wide Web, you could check to see if there were any changes to the schedule. It was free to go to Downtown Magix from campus, and vice versa, but other locations, she wasn’t as sure on.

“I guess it’s just a good idea to keep your student I.D. on you just in case, yeah?” Musa said. “Actually, does Red Fountain use I.D.’s?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” For a moment, Riven contemplated mentioning that he sometimes forgot to carry his. But that seemed like a little too much to admit when they still didn’t know each other that well.

Alfea’s stop was first, and he returned Musa’s wave a bit self-consciously as she got off and headed back onto the grounds. This was a weird day. And yet…he couldn’t say he’d hated it. There was just a lot to think about. A lot of stuff he wasn’t really used to thinking about. But Musa had said she didn't celebrate the Day of the Rose, and there weren't a huge number of reasons to guess from as to why. And sure, that sucked, but if someone else was the same way, then it kinda...sucked less? It shouldn't have been that big a deal, not when she'd barely mentioned it.

And then, he still hadn’t dealt with the little blow up he’d had with the guys earlier. Riven grimaced as he watched for his stop. The walk had been good to get his frustration out—and he’d unexpectedly gotten to know Musa a little better—but it didn’t leave much time to think of how he was supposed to handle that. Really, what he needed to do was slip back into Red Fountain unnoticed, crash early and hope he’d figured out what to say by morning. If it didn’t all blow over before then.

Heh. As if luck would be on his side for something like that. But maybe things could start looking up a bit more. He got off just outside of Red Fountain, and headed inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Canon is my playground and Magix is my sandbox. Or something like that. I'd read a little in the supplementary material about Riven's backstory, and started thinking how this could be used to flesh out the character and provide a point of development to start from, as well as creating a commonality-but-not-quite with Musa.   
> Of course, having Bloom go after Darcy instead of the helmet itself probably helps kick canon slightly to the left a bit...
> 
> A little before the Cinelume dub got taken off Netflix, I'd been going through season 1 and got the idea for a bit of canon divergence around episode 8. It seemed like a good place to start introducing that element as a bit of why he gets so vitriolic around the Day of the Rose, but averting the Darcy plot (for now, at least) gave a bit more time to start playing around with that. Over a year later, I finally finished the fic I started that day.
> 
> Riven is...kind of an interesting character to write. He seems to have some degree of self-awareness, but never quite be able to apply it. He's garbage at communicating, but very good at throwing up walls. Because we don't really see the character away from a competitive environment in the first season, it was interesting to imagine what he might be like when he's not putting up a front or otherwise acting like a jerk. I'll admit I still read him in Michael Sinterniklaas's voice, but his characterization is pulled a bit from the 4kids, a bit from the original, and a bit from supplementary material-based speculation. I was actually not expecting my first Winx fanfic to feature him in any capacity, let alone as the POV character.
> 
> Musa is about halfway between her 4kids and Cinelume self, since I haven't seen enough of the Nick dub to really know anything except that her voice actress is apparently phenomenal. She has some of the same issues he does with getting bristly as a defense mechanism and not really dealing with her emotions at times, but she's a lot better at knowing when she's crossing lines and keeping it in the defense territory. I think she's also a lot less willfully distanced from herself than he is. She's always been a favorite from childhood on, so I kinda figured she'd feature in whatever my first fanfic was for this series. (though admittedly I thought it would be about her budding friendship with android! Tecna, but...)
> 
> In any event, please let me know what you think!  
> ~Rin


End file.
